Rain for Sale

Schoharie Creek, which is really a river, after it was over.

Cheap! I know there are those of you needing rain, and indeed even praying for it.  I would sure like to share some of ours with you........all I ask is that you take care of shipping and handling.

It's getting ridiculous. It rains every day, or almost every day, and doesn't ever dry out in between. Yesterday it poured, washed out the driveway, ruined plans, and made a mess, and that was just here. North and west of us there were tornadoes, barns leveled, power lines down.

Enough.

Just provide a shipping address and an appropriate container and all this water will be on its way to you........pronto.

Thanks. (Do turn up your sound for the video. The rain even drowned out the highway noise.)



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Week on the Farm

Fun with daddy

The seductive scent of wild milkweed

Working on a new duck pen

Getting hay for the bull

Walk on the wild side

A new cow....

Not Quite Panic

After I hollered

A strange bird called this morning at nobody-else-up-yet-thirty.  The light lay golden like a mantle over the heifer pasture hill, the sky was plumed with pretty peach and purple fog, and the air was cool and clean.... I just had to go out with camera and binoculars.....

Up on the hillside, under the boss's leaning tree, I saw a great, big, black-and-white, cow belly, but no head showing in the grass.

Oh, no! We had several intense thunderstorms yesterday and the cows are on a steep hillside. Sometimes cattle roll the wrong way up on hills and die before they can be righted. It is very rare to see one lying flat out on her side unless something is wrong. (Horses on the other hand do it all the time and can scare the heck out of you.)

I thought it was old Neon Moon. What could have happened? Lightning? Bloat from being upside down? Bad thoughts raced through my head.

I hurried up where Mack was whipping around his circle barking and hollered, "Hey, you!"

A big horned head popped up out of the grass. It wasn't Moon at all, but her big daughter, Moonshine, who was just fine, and seemingly a bit irritated at being awakened after the restless night.

I was plumb relieved! I never did find that mystery bird. 

Mack

Uncommonly Rare

Chestnut-sided Warblers are common. It says so right in their description on All About Birds.

This does not however mean that I could find one....ever....except once when I was maybe in my twenties. That notation is in an old field guide that I can't even find any more.




Thus yesterday when we were over at Lyker's Pond looking and listening and I thought I heard one I was really excited. We must have scanned the shrubbery for an hour trying to set eyes on any one of three that were singing but just couldn't. However, I made a little video of the call to run by the experts. I was darned near positive that it wasn't just another American Redstart, of which we have several pairs right around the house and barns.

I was tickled pink to find that I was right. Isn't it funny how you might see birds that show up on the NY Rare Bird Alerts practically every day and can't find a common, and relatively easy to identify warbler like that? I am so grateful for Internet technology that made it possible for me to learn the song of a bird I had never heard in person....especially with my tin ear and all.

Anyhow it made my day, as did the kids' accounts of the birds they are seeing way down in North Carolina on the Outer Banks. Black Skimmers....seriously...wow.

Sunday on the Farm

Happy Birthday, Michael

How does it feel to catch up with your old vintage sister? Hope you have a wonderful day.....

Love you!

Serial

Nick, looking askance. 

Each dog, Mack first, and then Finn, felt the need to carry the blinkie ball up to the backyard this morning. The blinkie ball is a much contested treasure...beloved by both....but they usually leave it in the kitchen.

What was up with that anyhow? 

Debating on doggy arrangements for camp. Thinking take Mack, leave lovely Finn home, just because he is big and hairy. Not to mention young and a little timid and I fear losing hold of him and having him vanish in the wilderness. On the other hand he is really a much nicer doggy...

What do you think?

Beef with Brazil

Unless you are a Farm Side reader you probably didn't know how many times I have written about the USDA's folly in opening the USA to imports of fresh beef from Brazil. There have been a good many columns on the subject, including one last week.

Brazil is an endemic Foot and Mouth Disease country. America had its last case during the 1920s, reportedly at a farm across the river from us, the house upon which was built by the same people as constructed this one, and looked almost like our house as well. They were like twins to the north and south of the river...except that the cows there died and were burned and buried on that farm.....

The house burned too a few years ago and little is left except a sharp curve in the road and even sharper memories in a few minds here and there.

Foot and Mouth Disease is literally more contagious than the common cold. It can be spread great distances on water, air, by animals passing from farm to farm, and by products such as beef. Even laboratories studying the disease have been blamed for letting it loose on innocent animals. It is commonly recommended that farmers who visit countries where the disease is endemic quarantine themselves from their own livestock for a period after they return.  (How I wish I had my old computer with all the links to a couple of decades of research stories...the stuff is getting hard to find now, most links return 404 not found messages.....)

Great Britain has seen some horrific outbreaks in recent years, which devastated that nation's farm economy and resulted in the culling of 10 MILLION hoofed stock.

Imagine what an outbreak would do in this country. The cost of quarantines. The death of millions upon millions of cows, sheep, goats etc. With our wild population of hoofed animals, consider the cost and death toll of controlling an outbreak that affected them. We stink at getting rid of feral hogs. What if they got Foot and Mouth?

There are many columns worth of reasons why the change in our import rules was a lousy idea. Rampant corruption in Brazil. Adulterated meat. A lack of reciprocity in import/export balance....we would take in millions of bucks worth of their beef, while they bought almost none of ours. Even claims of slavery. 

However, the potential for Foot and Mouth disease is enough all on its own to make the opening of trade to fresh beef a fool's errand. One big mistake just waiting for disaster to happen. And it almost did.

Late yesterday evening the USDA abruptly halted the program and closed our borders to Brazilian beef. "A statement from the Brazilian Association of Beef Industry Exports says the self-suspension happened "after the detection of [bovine] reactions to the vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease, that in some cases can provoke internal, and not externally visible abscesses."...from Drovers Magazine.

I applaud the USDA for taking action in light of the number of code infractions found in meat from Brazil by FSIS inspections. However, it shouldn't have been a problem in the first place and I fear the suspension won't last long. Or at least not long enough.

Addition

Bent on subtraction...yesterday's Coopers Hawk

I was introduced yesterday to a mathematical concept that was utterly new to me. This one.

It seems illogical, but it is the way things are done. Anyhow, now I know why I could never do those memes where they substitute cheeseburgers for numbers. And here I always thought it was because I got distracted by all that food. Instead it's from not paying attention in math class.

However, there is another sort of math we are pretty good at here at Northview Farm. Adding to the population of song birds.

Today's fledglings include two broods of baby Black-capped Chickadees, some Eastern Phoebes, at least one, if not two broods of Purple Finches, and some newly minted House Finches.

Fortuitously the mulberries are just getting ripe. However, the newbies are also getting lessons in bird feeders 101, except the phoebes of course. They are having insects instead.

The yard is teeming with birds making such a clatter and chatter.

Comments

I love comments! Whether here or on Facebook shares, I treasure the chance to interact with my favorite folks.

Alas, due to constant spamming, even with moderation turned on for older posts, I have had to turn off anonymous comments. I apologize if this is a nuisance, but I've been getting dozens of spam comments every day. Can't figure out how to block them so.....

Sorry....

Favorites

Bullfrog Heaven

Yesterday started with plumbing.....you know how that can go. However, success was achieved, hot water forthcoming, and we rewarded ourselves with some sitting porch time with the plumber extraordinaire and Miss Peggy and company. She is mightily taken with the whole idea of hummingbirds coming to the feeder.

It was nice. 

Then in the evening we went over to Lykers to see what was stirring. Got 22 species of birds although nothing new. Such a pretty evening though.

Thank You Berry Much

Yesterday an unexpected gift of four quarts of lovely, juicy, deep red strawberries came my way. (Thank you Amber's mama!)

Thus three batches of freezer jam were made and Alan baked some nice shortcake for strawberry shortcake to be made with the other quart.

I had been suffering from severe berry envy, what with seeing everybody's berry delights on Facebook and all, and with our favorite picking place out of commission thanks to the depredations of marauding deer.

With jam in the freezer and biscuits and topping for shortcake tonight on hand as well, I feel so much better! 

June is BERRY month!

And Dairy Month as well of course....I mean, where would shortcake be without whipped cream after all?

Happy Father's Day

To all you fathers and dads out there, especially this one. Thanks dad, for all the nature interests, fishing, identifying trees and plants and bugs and beasts, especially the birds. Without that I would not have known this morning that the lovely cascade of notes about a foot from the bedroom window at five AM was an Indigo Bunting. I would have still been awake but not nearly as well informed......Love you!

And to this guy too. He gave me a chance to enjoy Mother's Day from the receiving end, plus teaching me most of what I know about cows and farming. Love you too.

Happy Father's Day to this guy as well. As you can see he has a lot of patience for his little sunshine.

Plus this guy, a wonderful dad we think the world of....

These guys, who have kept life interesting over the years and turned out to be among the most amazing of father folk.

Hope you all have a wonderful day and enjoy both fun and family.....

A few of dad's carvings

Death Song

A favorite menu item of the Coops. We never have more than a couple Rock Pigeons,
but there are often piles of feathers in the barnyard.

Yeah, I wear the binoculars around my neck when I hang clothes on the line. Doesn't everybody?

Anyhow, this soggy, gloomy morning I was putting some blankets out there...they will dry eventually.....maybe. And it's not like we need them much this time of year.

Suddenly a robin flew straight overhead making the oddest noise. I put the bins on it to be sure it was a robin because it sounded so odd even though I could see it clearly. Then the starlings joined in and a black cloud of Common Grackles descended over me.

Out of the box elders burst a Coopers Hawk, the first I have seen since winter, when one even hunted inside the heifer barn. This was colored like an adult but acted like an amateur, flushing from cover to cover and skulking under the leaves as best it could. It was ducking and dodging and trying hard to escape the magnificent mobbing it was getting.

You get an idea just how many yard birds you have when something like that happens. There were at least fifty common sorts alarming and dive bombing and more were still coming in from every direction, when it finally vanished to the north.

You should have heard them! The song of death is sharp and pretty just like the talons of the stone cold killer that caused it. I hope I have the camera next time.

32 Years Together

Recent cooperative venture, a new sign for the barn driveway so
hay customers can find us.

Complete with all the expected ups and downs. This day at another time we stood with my dearest friends and made a commitment still honored....there have been times when it felt as if we certainly should have been committed in quiet another sense, but for the most part we have had a lot of fun...and certainly many true adventures that were not for the faint of heart. Guess we must have been strong hearts after all.

Things that are quiet...and things that are not so quiet